


Pressure

by a_m_c_7



Series: A Slight Miscalculation [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Action, Attempted Kidnapping, BAMF Jim Moriarty, BAMF Sebastian Moran, Boss/Employee Relationship, Car Chases, Crack Treated Seriously, Crimes & Criminals, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, Humor, Kidnapping, M/M, Minor Injuries, Minor Original Character(s), Original Character Death(s), Sebastian Moran Speaks Foreign Languages, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 06:37:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19824571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_m_c_7/pseuds/a_m_c_7
Summary: In which Jim is kidnapped and Sebastian panics.----Sebastian sprinted across the street, skirting around a car that stopped short in front of him, and yanked the van’s door open. He threw himself into the driver’s seat, pulled the door closed, and put the vehicle into gear. He released the parking brake and stepped on the gas. As he peeled away from the kerb, he checked the rearview mirror for traffic...And saw six pairs of bewildered eyes staring at him.Yeah, definitely had to rethink that good under pressure thing.





	Pressure

Sebastian liked to think he performed well under pressure.

When Sebastian was eight years old, a fire had started in his house. His eleven-year-old brother had run from the room in terror, and Sebastian had retrieved the fire extinguisher the maid had shown him once and put out the flames. When Sebastian was twelve, he’d broken his arm badly enough that the bone had pierced the skin, and he’d walked the fifteen minutes it took to get back home from the woods he’d sneaked off to and then informed the nanny he needed to go to hospital. Back in his soldiering days, he’d been famous in his units for his steel-cold nerves and steady trigger finger. Dream up the most ridiculous life-and-death situation imaginable, well, not even _that_ would faze good old Moran, who’d just shoot the problem out of existence—whether it was something that bullets had an effect on or not. 

So the moment of blind panic Sebastian felt when he saw a man grab Jim in front of the train station and drive off with him was unexpected.

But he’d have time to re-evaluate his self-image later. Right now, he needed a vehicle... 

There. A van pulled over on the other side of the road, engine still running but driver’s seat empty.

Sebastian sprinted across the street, skirting around a car that stopped short in front of him, and yanked the van’s door open. He threw himself into the driver’s seat, pulled the door closed, and put the vehicle into gear. He released the parking brake and stepped on the gas. As he peeled away from the kerb, he checked the rearview mirror for traffic...

And saw six pairs of bewildered eyes staring at him.

Yeah, definitely had to rethink that good under pressure thing.

***

Jim was not having a particularly pleasant day.

First, he had woken up with his head throbbing like his skull was attempting to rend itself in two. Then, he had had to suffer through an incredibly tedious meeting with what had to be one of the most vacuous people he’d ever had the displeasure of encountering. And now, he was sitting in a car, hands tied behind his back, a hood over his head, and a gun pressed threateningly against his ribcage, because evidently he had just been kidnapped.

***

Wrenching his eyes away from the rearview mirror and back to the road, Sebastian managed (barely) to avoid crashing into a car stopped at a red light. He downshifted, swerved around the stationary vehicle, and gunned it across the intersection. Tyres squealed and horns blared as other drivers slammed on their brakes and vented their anger.

Sebastian looked back at his six inadvertent passengers. “Uh, hi.” He glanced a bit desperately around the front seat, finally noticing the hotel brand sticker on the windscreen. “Pewter Hotel, yeah? Better buckle up.”

One passenger, a businessman talking on his mobile phone in French, spared Sebastian only a brief annoyed glower. Another, an elderly lady sitting in the same row of seats as the man but clearly not travelling with him, fastened her seat belt. The rest gazed at Sebastian blankly. 

“Uh, _ceinture de sécurité_?” he tried, overtaking a taxi whose driver shook an irritated fist at him. “ _Cintura di sicurezza_? _Sicherheitsgurt_?” Fuck, what was it in Arabic again… “You know, safety belt?” He gestured to his own—unbuckled, he realized belatedly, which might not help him make his point.

What _did_ help him make his point was slamming on the brakes and veering around a vehicle merging into his lane.

Four seat belt buckles clicked into place. In the rearview mirror, Sebastian saw the elderly woman reach over to grab the businessman’s seat belt, pull it across his lap, and fasten it with a pointed _snap_.

***

The car smelled like lemon. Well, to be more accurate, it smelled like a mixture of chemical compounds that was meant to approximate the scent of lemons but in reality only managed to make one wonder if whoever had designed the formula had been born without a sense of smell, had somehow failed to be informed, and had ended up with a very unfortunate occupation.

It was making Jim’s head hurt again.

The two men in the car with Jim hadn’t spoken since the one who’d grabbed him off the pavement and shoved him into the backseat had told his companion behind the wheel to drive and had snarled at Jim to “shut up and don’t move.” The man’s voice was gruff and he smelled like sweat and cigarette smoke. He was digging the muzzle of the pistol into Jim’s side hard enough to bruise and one of his hands was gripping the back of Jim’s neck and Jim wanted to kill him kill him _kill him_ —

“Think we got a problem.” The man driving spoke in a bright tenor that suggested he was the younger of the two.

“What is it?” The hand on Jim’s neck tightened a fraction, and Jim pictured dislocating fingers at the joints one by one. 

“Well, um, it looks like…” The driver hesitated, but not from fear. It sounded more like he was unsure exactly how to explain the situation. “A hotel shuttle driver is following us.”

***

Sebastian cursed under his breath as the vehicle he was following sped up and made an abrupt left turn. Traffic was slowing him down, and he was still several car lengths behind the kidnappers. He pushed the accelerator as far down as it would go, hurtling across the last few hundred metres to the intersection, then shifted into a lower gear and decelerated just before he turned. He heard one of the passenger’s bags slide across the floor. 

The kidnappers’ car was even farther ahead now, weaving expertly in and out of traffic. Sebastian followed suit. Or he tried to, anyway. His chosen vehicle was not the most manoeuvrable, and it struggled to navigate the trail of stalled traffic that the kidnappers left in their wake. When Sebastian drove the shuttle bus through a gap between two cars, it scraped against one of them. Metal grinding against metal tore off the shuttle’s side view mirror, leaving it dangling by a single cable.

The kidnappers turned right, Sebastian turned right. They turned left, he turned left. They ran a red light, he ran a red—

“Euh, excuse me.” The businessman pulled the phone away from his ear. “We are going to the hotel?”

“Yeah, sure,” Sebastian said, distracted.

“It’s just, I was thinking that it was ten minutes to the hotel,” the man added in a voice tight with irritation. “I am very late for a meeting…” 

The old woman next to him patted his knee. “Don’t worry, dear,” she soothed. “I’m sure he’s trying his best to get us there as soon as possible.” She met Sebastian’s gaze in the rearview mirror, and her shrewd eyes twinkled with mirth.

***

His kidnappers were arguing. Jim wasn’t an expert in kidnapping people, but he was pretty sure that was something you were not supposed to do in front of your captive.

“—gaining on us. I thought you said he wouldn’t have any guards—”

“We don’t even know if it is a guard—”

“Who else could it bloody be?!”

“I dunno, a… vigilante shuttle bus driver?”

“A— you think it’s a _vigilante shuttle bus driver_?”

“Well, it could be! How do _you_ know?!”

“Because I’m not a complete idiot—”

Jim tested the cable tie binding his hands, making sure to keep his movements subtle on the off chance that either of them decided to remember his presence. It seemed unlikely. The man sitting beside him had long since lowered the gun from Jim’s side, too occupied with, from what Jim’s limited senses could tell, gesticulating wildly as he spoke. The man driving was equally distracted, if the way the car was drifting and being harshly corrected every few seconds was anything to go on.

Jim’s restraints weren’t loose enough that he could just slip out of them, but he had managed to clench his hands into fists when he’d been ambushed earlier. This allowed him a bit of slack when he relaxed his hands and rotated his wrists so his palms were facing. Shifting his arms up a bit, he felt around with his fingers for the safety pin attached to the waistband of his trousers. Using his thumb and forefinger, he unclasped the pin and removed it from the fabric. With his other hand, he searched for the locking mechanism of the cable tie. Once he found it, he moved his hands so that he could stick the coiled end of the pin into the ratchet. Depressing the pawl with the pin, he slowly separated his wrists. The cable tie, now free to move in either direction, loosened until it slipped off and onto the car seat.

The two men were still engaged in their bickering. If Jim moved quickly, he could catch them off guard. He grabbed the knife from the inside pocket of his suit jacket with one hand and pulled the hood from his head with the other.

“What the—!” the man next to him exclaimed in alarm, raising his arm to aim the pistol at Jim. Before he could complete the motion, Jim knocked his arm away and stabbed the knife into his neck. The man bellowed in pain and the gun went off, sending a bullet through the passenger side window. Shards of safety glass went flying. 

The driver let out a startled yelp. The vehicle careened, throwing Jim and the man he’d just stabbed across the backseat. Jim’s face cracked against the plastic of the door panel, igniting his senses with a sharp burst of pain, and the man, now unconscious, landed in a heavy heap on top of him.

The driver’s frantic chant of “fuck, fuck, fuck” was the only warning before the impact.

***

The car Jim was in crashed into a lamp post, and Sebastian fought his second wave of panic for the day. He braked hard, nearly launching himself through the windscreen with the momentum, and leapt out of the shuttle once it came to a jerking halt. He jogged a few paces, then paused, went back, and opened the door he’d just slammed shut and poked his head inside the vehicle.

“Stay here,” he told the passengers. “I’ll be right back, then we’ll go to the hotel,” he added as an afterthought, hoping that would prevent them from causing any trouble. 

He turned and saw Jim climb out of the backseat of the wrecked car, leaving the door open and leaning against it to gain his balance. Higher thought flew from Sebastian’s brain, and he ran over and pulled Jim into an embrace before the man could react. Jim’s arms hung awkwardly at his sides, and it occurred to Sebastian that despite all he and Jim had done in bed they’d never actually hugged before.

“What the hell are you doing? Get off me,” Jim complained, but made no effort to push him away. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Sebastian said and stepped back. “Are you okay?” His eyes roved over Jim, looking for any injuries. A trickle of blood seeped from a small cut on his cheek, but aside from that he seemed unharmed.

“I’m fine,” Jim dismissed. He looked past Sebastian and raised his eyebrow wryly. “Interesting choice of vehicle.”

“Yeah, well.” Sebastian shrugged, trying not to look embarrassed. Based on Jim’s expression, he wasn’t very successful.

Forestalling any more comments, he examined the kidnappers’ vehicle. One of them was slumped in the backseat, blood from a stab wound in his neck pooled around him. Sebastian felt for a pulse, finding nothing. Dead, then. He moved to the front of the car to check on the driver. His head lolled forward, but Sebastian could see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed shallowly. Sebastian opened the door and jostled the man, who came to with a groan.

“Huh…?” The driver looked around in confusion, eyes going wide in fear when his gaze fell on Sebastian. “Super Shuttle Man…” He broke off with a pained moan. “Have mercy, please…”

…What?

“We should bring him with us,” Jim said, coming up behind Sebastian. “He might be able to tell us why they tried to take me.” He peered into the car. “Is the other one dead?”

“Yeah,” Sebastian answered as he hauled the addled driver out of the vehicle.

“Good.” Jim reached into the backseat and collected a cable tie, already fastened but still usable, which he handed to Sebastian. Sebastian secured it around the driver’s wrists. “Let’s go, then. The police will probably be here soon.”

“About that…” Sebastian began, gesturing to the shuttle bus. “I kinda promised I’d get them to the hotel, so…”

Jim looked at him incredulously before rolling his eyes and heading toward the shuttle. Following his lead, Sebastian prodded the driver over to the vehicle. The back door slid open from the inside, and the businessman stomped out.

“ _J’arrive, j’arrive_ ,” he was saying into his mobile. “ _Je vais prendre un taxi._ _Oui. Dix, quinze minutes, je vous promets._ ” He glared at Sebastian as he stormed by and spat out, “ _Connard._ ”

“ _Bonne journée_ ,” Sebastian offered pleasantly.

Jim was waiting by the shuttle, so Sebastian deposited the driver into the now-empty seat next to the elderly woman. He looked at her. “Keep an eye on him for me, will you?”

“Of course, dear,” she promised. Underneath her jovial tone was a hint of no-nonsense resolve. “Hello, young man,” she said to the driver, who greeted her with a nod and a respectful, “Ma’am.”

Sebastian shut the sliding door, then settled himself in the driver’s seat of the shuttle bus. Jim got in beside him, turning back to face the passengers.

“Hi. I’m Jim,” he said smoothly, seeming faintly amused by the mystified expressions he received in return. 

Sebastian had left the engine running, so he simply shifted into first gear and pulled away. He made it to the end of the block before he realized he had no idea where he was going.

“Hey.” He pulled his mobile phone from his pocket and held it out to Jim. “Could you look up directions to Pewter Hotel?”

“I _will_ stab you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I made the businessman speak French because that is the non-English language I am most familiar with. No commentary on French-speakers is intended. 
> 
> Translations:  
> J’arrive, j’arrive. – I’m coming, I’m coming.  
> Je vais prendre un taxi. - I'm going to take a taxi.  
> Oui. Dix, quinze minutes, je vous promets. - Yes. Ten, fifteen minutes, I promise you.  
> Connard – Asshole, idiot, jerk  
> Bonne journée. - Have a nice day.
> 
> Ceinture de sécurité is “seat belt” in French, cintura di sicurezza is Italian, and Sicherheitsgurt is German.


End file.
